09-01-2020, 02:13 AM
I use a Microsoft Surface for my music. Much of my charts are images from sheet music like the real books or a collection of the music minus one variety of books that I have bought for playing solos in church. I use a pedal to turn pages.
Now, here's the problem. A lot of music like that wastes way too much space. And it skips around way too much. The typical D.S. al Coda is a real pain to navigate on a multi page chart using MobileSheets and a pedal.
So, far, I have been resorting to using Photoshop to edit the images. I can select and move staffs closer together. I also will erase stuff I don't need to see for a performance. And when it comes to D.S. al Coda, what I do is to make a copy of the portion with the D.S. and convert the music so that it's linear. That is, I make it so I don't have to go back. I'm able to use the pedal always in the forward direction. I'm also often able to reduce the screen real estate to half the number of pages if there is no jumping around. Often, a two page chart becomes one page. It's really nice to not have to turn the page.
One of the other things I do is to format each page to 1824 X 2736, which is the screen size of the Surface. This maximizes the use of the pixels that are there and makes the music easier to use.
Now, here's why I'm writing this, though I'd be happy to discuss some methods I use for using Photoshop to edit the music, and even discuss preparing tracks for use in performance. But what I have a problem with is how long it takes to prepare a chart in Photoshop. I spend up to an hour for each chart. It's worth it, but it takes a lot of time.
How do you handle this? Or do you? Do you just put up with how you find the music printed?
Now, here's the problem. A lot of music like that wastes way too much space. And it skips around way too much. The typical D.S. al Coda is a real pain to navigate on a multi page chart using MobileSheets and a pedal.
So, far, I have been resorting to using Photoshop to edit the images. I can select and move staffs closer together. I also will erase stuff I don't need to see for a performance. And when it comes to D.S. al Coda, what I do is to make a copy of the portion with the D.S. and convert the music so that it's linear. That is, I make it so I don't have to go back. I'm able to use the pedal always in the forward direction. I'm also often able to reduce the screen real estate to half the number of pages if there is no jumping around. Often, a two page chart becomes one page. It's really nice to not have to turn the page.
One of the other things I do is to format each page to 1824 X 2736, which is the screen size of the Surface. This maximizes the use of the pixels that are there and makes the music easier to use.
Now, here's why I'm writing this, though I'd be happy to discuss some methods I use for using Photoshop to edit the music, and even discuss preparing tracks for use in performance. But what I have a problem with is how long it takes to prepare a chart in Photoshop. I spend up to an hour for each chart. It's worth it, but it takes a lot of time.
How do you handle this? Or do you? Do you just put up with how you find the music printed?